One of the 200-year-old Bombay city milestones at Dadar had a close shave in the serial bomb blasts that rocked the city on Wednesday.
In fact, one could say that it was the apathy of civic heritage authorities in conservation of the heritage milestone that actually saved it from destruction.
The milestone, located yards away from the ill-fated bus stop that was hit by the bomb blast on SK Bole Road at Dadar kabutarkhana, did not suffer damage in the blast as it remained buried in the footpath.
The effect of the blast ripped off parts of the steel bus stop, damaged parts of the pavement. Late Friday night, the lane of the Dadar bus stop, which was one of the sites of Wednesday's serial blasts, was thrown open to the public, after two days.
The city’s original 16 milestones, that are spread across the city were installed over two hundred years ago and served as the backbone of the seven islands that once Mumbai was. According to civic records, the one at Dadar reads as VII miles and was placed between 1816 and 1837.
“The milestone is a few yards away and it could not have been damaged even if it would have stood taller as the major impact of the blast at Dadar was at a higher level. Nevertheless, the milestone did have a close shave,” a conservation architect said.
The latest list of the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority's Heritage committee lists 16 original milestones, including the one kept in the premise of the Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Byculla.
These milestones were built between 1816-1837 and these basalt stones, originally three or four feet tall, mark the distance in miles from St Thomas’s Church (today St Thomas’s Cathedral at Fort) which, in the eighteenth century, comprised the city-centre. This means they measure the distance of a particular location from the city's centre.
Of the 16 milestones listed, many are missing or have sunken into the ground during various road-widening projects or footpath building projects. BMC's heritage committee chairperson Dinesh Afzalpurkar, however, refused to comment on the issue.
